Guidelines for Authors
Guidelines for Authors The professional way to publish your academic papers 2013
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Guidelines for Authors 1 Publishing is the surest way to advance your academic career. But it has never been easy, more so lately. Traditional academic publishing houses have become impersonal institutions, and resorting to a «vanity press» is no option, as peer review is a must to produce a serious edition. For the past 13 years STOCKCERO has built a highly regarded catalog and a solid reputation of publishing excellence, based upon the many academics who have trusted us their manuscripts. So, if you feel it is time to start thinking about publishing your Academic Monograph Dissertation or thesis Collection of essays or any other type of scholarly publication on History and Literary Criticism, and Literary and Cultural Studies about Latin America and Spain Follow these simple steps to propose a new book: First Please read carefully our Guidelines for Authors to make sure your manuscript complies to our standards. Next send me an email to pagrest@stockcero.com including: Introduction for the work A sample chapter. A survey of other works in the field which might compete with the proposed one, and a brief argument demonstrating why the proposed work will, despite competition, be of value to libraries and scholars.
2 Stockcero A survey of the market for the book. Who will read it, and why they will want to buy it. The approximate length of the book, including all endmatter such as appendixes, bibliographies, and indexes. The number of photographs that are required. to facilitate the peer review process, proposals should include the following information: A general description of the project A chapter outline and table of contents A brief discussion of the existing literature and the expected contribution to it An estimation of the length of the manuscript and the schedule for completion A curriculum vitae Which are the following steps, and how Long will it take? You will receive either an initial expression of interest or a rejection within four to six weeks. The next step is the review process, when outside reviewers evaluate your manuscript. The review process takes from one to three months. If the reviewers recommend publication and the Publishing Advisory Committee approves the manuscript, then we will publish the book. If your manuscript is approved for publishing an editor will work with you to make sure that it meets exactly Stockcero's formal standards (see Guidelines for Authors). This process should take no more than two weeks. The last step, layout and production, generally takes three weeks.
Guidelines for Authors 3 Guidelines for Authors VERY IMPORTANT NOTICE Please bear in mind that you will be submitting a MANU- SCRIPT, not a set of PRINTING MECHANICALS. This means that final formatting will be handled by the layout department, so your mission is to give the layout person the information he needs to render a professional book format to your work. Galley proofs are meant for checking that the layout person has understood your instructions, not to be used as a basis for further manuscript corrections. Text corrections requested AFTER the galley proofs have been generated will be charged to you. Footnotes Our aim is to assist readers to better comprehend the text. Therefore, it is important that entries be self-contained, written as clearly as possible, and avoid the use of undefined jargon or terms that are not easily understood. In all cases the footnotes must be as concise as possible -even laconic-. A good rule of thumb is to think about what you would say if consulted by a reader inside a library reading room. Both lexicographic and contextual footnotes are requested, when advisable. Annotated terms must appear italicized, then ":", then a space. All footnotes must end with a period. Verbs must be annotated in infinitive.
4 Stockcero Localisms must be specified between parenthesis. Between the note number and the term there should be a tabulation. 12 Bogar: (Colombia) beber, tomar. Footnotes must begin with a capital letter. 12 Bogar: Remar. VERY IMPORTANT NOTICE! NEVER number notes manually. ALWAYS use the MSWord«Insert Footnote» feature. BEWARE: there must be no blank line breaks between footnotes. Only one line break between notes is allowed. Line breaks translate as footnote reference numbers, so a blank line will break the reference numbers synchronization. NEVER insert a line return inside a footnote. If you need a footnote text to be separated in lines use a marker character (OPTION 6) this will tell the layout pro to insert a carriage return. line break within footnotes that refuses to be deleted most of the times obeys to a previously wrongly deleted note. To delete a note simply delete its reference number, MSWord will automatically delete the referred text. Otherwise a blank line space will remain. Dashes, Quotation marks and white spaces Dashes: Use long «em dashes» for dialogue lines: «Mira a tu alrededor...»
Guidelines for Authors 5 Use mid-length «en dashes» for comments internal to phrases: «... a tu alrededor dijo como si le importara mucho no hallarás nada...» Use short dashes for compound words: «Sud-América». Quotation marks Use low marks for first level «...» In nested quotations use double high for second level and simple high for third level: «...............». Periods and commas that are part of quotes should be placed inside quotation marks. Periods and commas that are part of the sentences that contain quotes must be placed outside quotation marks. White spaces General Rule: NEVER use a white space before A CLOSING punctuation mark ALWAYS use a single white space after A CLOSING punctuation mark NEVER use a white space after AN OPENING punctuation mark ALWAYS use a single white space before AN OPENING punctuation mark NEVER use a single white space after a line break. NEVER use double (or triple, etc.) white spaces for line indenting purposes. Beware An «em dash» is ALWAYS an opening (dialogue) punctuation mark
6 Stockcero A line break is not a punctuation mark So do not use white spaces after a line break ( Please the typographer sobbed it makes my job soooo difficult). Bibliographic References and Further Reading Primary and Secondary sources should be identified as such and listed under the general header «Bibliographic References and Further Reading», following the MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing. Acosta de Samper, Soledad. «El Almirante Corsario Francisco Drake». Los piratas en Cartagena. Bogotá: Imprenta de «La Luz», 1886. 19-64.. «El corazón de la mujer». Novelas y cuadros de la vida suramericana. Gante: Imprenta de Eug. Vanderhaeghen, 1869. 235-348. El corazón de la mujer (Ensayo psicológico). Curazao, Imprenta de la Librería de A. Bethencourt e hijos, 1887. 124p. Primary Sources List only the most important works by the author in chronological order. Please give only the standard edition of a classic work; do not list several or the most recent editions. Include date of publication, place and publisher. You may include one preferred English translation (with English title, name of translator, year, place and name of publisher). If the author's works have been translated into languages
Guidelines for Authors 7 other than English, you may note "translated in xxx, xxx, and xxx" as appropriate. Secondary Sources List important works about the author. Please limit the list to the most important critical works. Several of these writers have been the subject of hundreds of articles and essays in books, journals, and dissertations. This secondary bibliography is meant to provide the reader with an idea of where to obtain further information on that specific writer, if needed. Please specify an edition for any work. Try to list books that most users could find in a research library Additional Style Points Abbreviations and acronyms Any abbreviation or acronym you employ should appear in full on its first appearance in the entry, with the abbreviation or acronym in parentheses: e.g., Latin American Studies Association (LASA). Capitalization NEVER use Upper Case for entire words. NEVER use All Caps.
8 Stockcero Capitalization in Titles Always capitalize the first and the last word. Capitalize all: nouns pronouns adjectives verbs adverbs subordinate conjunctions («as», «because», «although») Lowercase all: articles coordinate conjunctions («and», «or», «nor») prepositions, regardless of length unless they are the first or last word Ellipsis For any omitted word, phrase, line, or paragraph from within a quoted passage use three points... Never use the prefabricated ellipsis character (Unicode U+2026). Beware, MSWord replaces three consecutive points with U+2026 automatically unless the «autocorrect» feature is set off. Make sure that «Replace text as you type» in the «Tools» menu is left unchecked. Never use spaces between ellipsis points: «...» instead of «...». Identification of people and places Give chronological, geographical, or cultural clues to identify
Guidelines for Authors 9 people and concepts mentioned in your article wherever appropriate. Indents Use paragraph indenting for long quotes. NEVER use line breaks plus white spaces for indenting purposes. NEVER use tabs for first paragraph line indenting purposes. Non-Spanish terminology Should the text contain non-spanish terms, these may be italicized as appropriate. The word should then be referenced with a footnote clarifying its Spanish translation. In the instance of a non-literal translation, the word must be set in italics followed by the approximate translation in quotation marks. Numbers Spanish notation should be used (1.000 is a thousand; 1,000 is a unit with 0 decimals). Spell out fractional amounts (e.g., dos tercios) and do not use abbreviated notation for numerical ranges; use expressions such as «pp. 170-179» for page ranges. When dealing with percentages in the body of the text, use numerals for the amounts and spell out the word percent (e.g., «While 75 percent of authors...»).
10 Stockcero When percentages appear in parentheses to provide greater detail, use numerals and the percent symbol (e.g., «The majority (75%) of authors...»). Key issues for proper manuscript building Please use Microsoft Word (any version will do) There is no need for you to define a Document setup, this will be set by the layout professional. You may use ANY FONT and FONTSIZE size for the main text and all additional parts except footnotes (where you should use 9pts), and chapter headings (where you should use 16pts). Indent the first line of each paragraph by 5mm USING the PARAGRAPH MENU. NEVER, NEVER, use tabs or multiple blank spaces. Make sure that there are no extra blank spaces in the document: use the Find and Replace command to substitute all double spaces for single spaces. Repeat this procedure until no double blank spaces are found. Mark quoted texts of greater than 2 lines or other texts which you think should stand out by inserting a colon (:) before the quote and leaving one line space between the bottom line and following main text. This will tell the layout professional to leave half a line between the main text and the quote, to use a smaller fontsize and spacing and to indent it both left and right. There is no need to use quotation marks in these cases. For all other refer to the Dashes, Quotation marks and white spaces point above. Make sure that each chapter of your text, as well as frontmatter (dedication, title, preface, forward, introduction or introductory note, contents) and endmatter (appendixes, endnotes, bibliographies, index) begin on a new page.
Guidelines for Authors 11 If your manuscript includes pictures placed within the text please include these as separate files too, and make sure that images are named consistently to avoid confusion. Images Use JPEG at 300 DPI final printing size files for producing images or photographs, and EPS files for vector graphics (illustrations). All images including photographs must be included in the main Word and the images must also be submitted as separate files. Take into account the 6 X 9 size of the final book pages when including images. Your image will have to be resized if it is too large or too small, and this can prove problematic in certain cases. Images for printing MUST have at least a resolution of 300 dpi at the size in which they are going to be printed. i.e. an image that will appear 4" wide by 6" tall must be 1200 px wide by 1800 px tall. Call your pictures or illustrations Fig. 4-3 or Ex. 2-3. The first number refers to the chapter number and the second to the illustration or image number within the chapter. Scan your images at 300 dpi and introduce the enlargement percentage at the scanning stage. Normal scanners have a 1200 DPI optical resolution, so 4X times enlargement is possible without quality loss. Images cannot be software resampled to a larger size and expect a good print result. Color images for printing should always be saved in the RGB mode, as this is how they look in your monitor. We willtake care of converting them to CMYK for printing.
Publishing is the surest way to advance your academic career. But it has never been easy, more so lately. Traditional academic publishing houses have become impersonal institutions, and resorting to a «vanity press» is no option, as peer review is a must to produce a serious edition. Since 2000 STOCKCERO has built a highly regarded catalog and a solid reputation of publishing excellence, based upon the many academics who have trusted us their manuscripts.